Live streaming NS2 Beta Gameplay

Whether you are live streaming yourself playing Minecraft or if you are one of the 30 billion people who tuned in to watch MLG Anaheim, live streaming is the perfect way to interact with all those other nerds on the internet. ESports, specifically Starcraft 2, has been growing at a ridiculous rate in the past several months and live streaming is the medium all events use to reach their audience.

I personally do my livestreaming through Justin.tv and now mainly through their gaming division Twitch.tv. Setting up a live stream is simple if you have the computer and network connection to handle it. I won't go into detail about how to set this up as I want to see what you think of this a medium of publicity.

Popular gamers in the Starcraft 2 scene like Destiny or Day[9], consistently break between 3000 to +10000 viewers per day. In the case of Destiny, he streams for 5 or more hours per day and actually makes a living off the ad revenue he generates from his stream. Now on my livestream on twitch I don't get that many viewers, but when it comes to tapping into a new community every viewer counts. With one person streaming "Natural Selection 2" its easy for potential viewers to overlook the channel in the directory. But if we can get several people streaming it can generate more interest and expose more viewers to the gameplay as we see it from our monitors.

Streaming is just not possible with the current version of NS2. They really need to focus on optimizing the game some more. The current performance numbers are just so insane that it's starting to make less and less people want to play it and report their beta findings...

I've tried streaming on Twitch.tv with XSplit and it's just not possible even with a monster machine and a more than capable internet connection speed :(

I personally own a Pro account for Twitch.tv and spent a good 4 hours last night experimenting with getting NS2 to stream properly and was unsuccessful. You can't stream in Full Screen which really makes streaming scrims and matches a no go. When you get it to stream in windowed mode, if you sit still, your picture quality is amazing (1080P in my case). If you even begin to move, the picture quality turns to absolute poopy. You also experience easily a 20-30 FPS drop and it 90% of the current players will equal a 0FPS experience in game. Luckily I am pushing around 70FPS, but, if I stream, it turns the game very choppy and I'm unable to play the game properly.

I lolled, I only play games in window mode due to a multi monitor setup and know many people who like window mode. Deus Ex HR has no window mode which irks me to some extend... Recording gameplay while being able to monitor mic and volume levels on the second monitor is invaluable!

I'm not familiar with live streaming though and the requirements for recording... Might have to take a look at that stuff sometimes :)

Forum Admin "guardian of the magic cookiejar"I mostly use a flamethrower tank for disputes... Mostly

To stream you need to play ns2 in windowed mode, and fake maximize it with ShiftWindow (google) - the Xsplit tool cant stream maximized applications. (i also deactivated windows aero - xplit can do it for you if you start to stream and reenables it after you stopped)

Does own3d work with full HD streaming like 1080 or at least 720?Right now I'm using livestream because of quality and ease of use, but their payment plan is retarded.Limited to 10gig footage and 50 viewers. The next "step" in their payment plan is over 200$ a month so that's not happening.

Gave Own3d a try. Didn't notice any major performance hit, but I think that had a lot to do with the server.Was sitting comfortably at around 25 FPS in 1080p, BUT I sort of forgot to go windowed mode so the stream was blacking out all the time.

Wanted to check the quality of the recording itself afterwards, but couldn't find any saved footage so I'm assuming it was not saved.A friend of mine told me you could save stuff via the Broadcast button - but mine didn't do the same things his did. Guessing this was because I recently created the account and they have to "set it up" or something or other.

If you click on the broadcast button on the website after you started to stream with xsplit, there is a record/stop record, cut here button - this records everything to your own3d channel (no additional performance cost), you can manage those videos under profile(on the own3d website ofc) => my videos. (You can also download them, share them on youtube, delete etc. from here)

If you want to record locally there is a button in xsplit(without livestream), + there is also a option somewhere to record everything locally while you are streaming but i guess it costs some additional performance... (To watch local recordings, xsplit => tools => my recordings)

PS: I highly suggest if you didnt change any settings to at least change the audio settings => 44khz stereo, !!!96000 bitrate!!! or higher - otherwise the sound will be pretty crappy.

Location aside, relying on just one guy even if he's dedicated it asking too much in any case :P

I think the issue is that Australian ISP's suck such that they only offer poor speeds with low bandwidth limits. NS2HD has neither the down/up or bandwidth to livestream a match. Other people do, so it would be nice to see some more livestreams.

I think the issue is that Australian ISP's suck such that they only offer poor speeds with low bandwidth limits. NS2HD has neither the down/up or bandwidth to livestream a match. Other people do, so it would be nice to see some more livestreams.

I got my own3d stream working at http://www.own3d.tv/Nixxen (moved from livestream).It won't be as much live as it will be for the easy recordings. In other words, archive footage.

Still getting the hang of things, trying to tweak Xsplit for the best possible quality. Currently I feel it's a bit blurry, but according to some of the own3d staff I've talked to, streaming anything higher than 1500kbps with a 3000kbps buffer and over 720p will bog down your stream and make it lag a bit.

I am still testing different qualities, and trying to find the best solution for 1080p so the viewing experience might vary between the different videos.

So apparently this XSplit broadcaster has trouble with getting the basic sound recording right where Windows XP is concerned? It simply refuses to record any Wave or "What you hear" sounds at all. Microphone is fine mind you, it's just lacking the game sounds... Where do you actually set up the sound recording (not the microphone, but actual wave recording)

Or is this piece of software simply not able to record from two separate channels on Windows Xp, I've got plenty of other programs that have no issue what so ever with this :/

[edit]I've read some odd things about it using line-in, for some vague reason (Console recording, I'm guessing). As to why this setting is the default (none working one) for computers has me puzzled. Who their right mind would use, line-in when you can simply record wave or "what you hear" from within the audio card...

[edit2]Haven't tried this livestreaming on a server yet, but I think my 300Kb/s upstream might not be up to the job, while still retaining a good latency ingame as well. I'll just stick to Fraps and YT (unless this Livestreamer can lower the CPU/HDD stress, while recording footage... Whenever it decides to record wave!) then it will perhaps be XSplit and a combo of "not so live" stream (just uploading it) and YT

Post edited by Unknown User on September 2011

Forum Admin "guardian of the magic cookiejar"I mostly use a flamethrower tank for disputes... Mostly

So apparently this XSplit broadcaster has trouble with getting the basic sound recording right where Windows XP is concerned? It simply refuses to record any Wave or "What you hear" sounds at all. Microphone is fine mind you, it's just lacking the game sounds... Where do you actually set up the sound recording (not the microphone, but actual wave recording)

Or is this piece of software simply not able to record from two separate channels on Windows Xp, I've got plenty of other programs that have no issue what so ever with this :/

I simply predetermine my default input and output sound channels in the windows sound manager and in XSplit I set it to use default output but I define which mic it should use. After that XSplit automagically records both of them seamlessly.

One problem I have though is that the noise canceling function does not trigger at all.

[edit2]Haven't tried this livestreaming on a server yet, but I think my 300Kb/s upstream might not be up to the job, while still retaining a good latency ingame as well. I'll just stick to Fraps and YT (unless this Livestreamer can lower the CPU/HDD stress, while recording footage... Whenever it decides to record wave!) then it will perhaps be XSplit and a combo of "not so live" stream (just uploading it) and YT

I haven't had any CPU or HDD hits while recording so far. I do have quite a few HDDs to spread the load though, but the main disc handles both OS functions, browsing and XSplit. Any decent 7200RPM drive should work just fine.As for the CPU, assigning the affinity might work for you - but as I said, I haven't noticed any hit in performance yet.

As for the 300Kb/s up. Mhyeah :P That's not going to give you a very fluid stream.At 720p mine uses around 600-800 kb/s up, sometimes spiking at 1100kb/s. When switching to 1080p it doesn't use more though, so not sure what that's all about.I set my limit to 1500kb/s max, so it could be that it tries to get a decent stream somewhere around half of your max limit to compensate for upload spikes.

At any rate, setting your max upstream to -100kb/s of your lines max capacity is recommended just so you avoid choking your upstream in-game.That would leave you with 200ish kb/s. Aaaand not image quality at all :/

Sure thing.Not sure exactly which config you're looking for so I'll jot down the ones that I think might matter.

My connection from Norway to Ireland is 48200kbps down and 6140kbps up when using speedtest.net. I used the Dublin server on a whim since I'm not sure exactly where the own3d servers are located - but from what I've read they're in Ireland at least.I set my max up bitrate to 1500kbps with a 3000kbps buffer in xsplit channel setup(this was a recommendation by one of the own3d staff members. Going over this will possibly bog down their server and cause your stream to get laggy). Video Quality is 6 and resolution is "Default stage Resolution" which I assume is the predetermined resolution you chose in the Xsplit broadcasting window.I haven't messed with the video quality setting yet, so this might be why I'm getting "blurry" streams.Sound quality is 96k - 44.1KHz 16 stereo, but I doubt changing that will affect an performance at all.

My streaming resolution is set to 1080p, but I really can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p when broadcasting with XSplit, so from now on I'm going with 720p.Have been broadcasting with both 1080 and 720 earlier, and quality wise there is no remarkable difference.

My cpu is an I7-960 quad with a maximum clock of ~3.4GHz with some extra cooling for stability. It's using tripping to scale the clock frequency, so it rarely, if ever, get that high unless the CPU is under a LOT of stress.I don't think the GFX card is all that important, but just in case - it's an XFX Radeon HD 5850. 1gb video memory - not intentionally overclocked since I have no extra cooling for it, but it's a side effect of the CPU overclock. The stock GPU cooler seems to handle it without problems though.My HDD setup is one physically separate drive for games, one for OS and other shenanigans that's running(any sort of program that is not a game).I think the stream is "buffered" through the OS drive - but that's only guesswork on my part.I'm running 6GB ddr3 ram. Anything lower than this will most likely impact any video editing/handling I do. Not sure how much streaming is affected by ram though.

Let me know if you need any other info.

One thing to note about your stream. If I run through walls like you did in some of the spectating videos I too get a lot of lag, but that's because of the game itself jerking out and not because of the stream bogging down the PC.When not thinking about NS2 server lag, client side occlusion culling and build 185s collision check bugs there's rarely much lag though.

Hmm, I've tried a new setting using a 16:9 res of 786x432, still acceptable to some extend. And it seems to upload mostly at 32Kb/s with some peaks to 100Kb/s... I've also tried recording at 1280x720 (quality 5 in XSplit) and it uses 80Kb/s to 160Kb/s...

The only thing is, recording at 720p tanks my FPS, while Fraps does no such thing (Fraps quality is also much higher...)

Overall when using Twitch.tv, I get about 3 to 6 seconds of a delay when streaming. Also still no sound recording from the wave/"What you hear". Everything is setup correctly, it's just that XSplit is seriously lacking in sound options, you can only set the bloody microphone. Are you guys running Win7 or Vista to get more options out of the thing...

Forum Admin "guardian of the magic cookiejar"I mostly use a flamethrower tank for disputes... Mostly

The only thing is, recording at 720p tanks my FPS, while Fraps does no such thing (Fraps quality is also much higher...).

Fraps is creating high quality uncompressed avi and saving it to your HD location. XSplit is creating a mid quality compressed flv file that it is then uploading to a server that is not directly near you.

Huge difference lol. You would be crazy if you think youll get the same framerate drop as fraps when streaming.

The ingame FPS tanks like crazy, while recording with XSplit at the same res as Fraps (720p). Of course Fraps has a much cleared picture due to higher bitrate and less compression. Heh streaming that quality across the net would be something indeed :P.

I just find it odd that XSplit tanks my ingame FPS, where Fraps keeps it usually fairly stable and has to write much more data to the HDD. Or is the XSplit encoding just ######slapping my CPU, I'm guessing this is not the case though, with just 5-15% CPU usage...

Forum Admin "guardian of the magic cookiejar"I mostly use a flamethrower tank for disputes... Mostly

Blimey... Seems I am delusional after all :(The only adjustable sound setting in XSplit was my mic.

I've set my G35 as both default device and default communication device in the windows sound manager(playback), so that might be something you could check(obviously using your own sound unit:P)Also setting the correct mic input in XSplit.Never had to use Stereo Mix for any streaming program I've used so far.

Oh, and as for delay. That should only be from when things happen on your pc to when people see them on the stream and not an actual sound delay on the stream. Mine is around 6ish seconds so I think that's some default value decided by the server.If your video and sound is desynched then something is very wrong.